Sometimes You Hear the Bullet
by lovablegeek
Summary: Between S1 and S2 - In the cells of the Valiant, the team watches as they're taken, one by one, and Jack is left with a choice that isn't a choice at all. JackToshIanto, spoilers for Fragments and SoD/LotTL - One shot


"Alright." Owen glances around the cell at the other three, all of them sitting with their knees drawn up to their chests on a cold, uncomfortable floor. "Show of hands, worst Torchwood disaster ever?"

He's trying for humor, but it falls flat and is met by silence as Gwen rests her forehead on her knees, Tosh tries to force all emotion back, and Ianto just watches them all. What Ianto has to wonder is why they're all in the same cell. Aren't prisoners usually separated?

Then, from what he's seen of Harold Saxon - no, the Master - he doesn't always go for the most reasonable choice. Obviously.

Owen's silent for a moment, then tries again. "Well, are we going to start planning how to get out or what?"

But they all know they're not getting out, and not even Gwen can dredge up the energy to pretend.

* * *

They don't see Owen's execution, but they can hear it. He'd just managed to goad Gwen into an argument about whether or not this was worse than Abaddon and the Rift - Owen kept pointing out that at least he hadn't been shot this time - and then they took him. They'd all been wondering what those speakers in the upper corners of the cell were for, and then they crackled to life and they _knew_.

At first it was just cursing, and pained gasps. And then it slid into begging, with the low, incomprehensible murmur of the Master's voice in the background. Cursing again, but it's cursing _at_ someone - at Jack, as far as any of them can tell. By the end, it's just screaming, and finally silence.

The silence is the worst, somehow.

Gwen wraps her arms around Tosh, expression empty. Ianto closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall of the cell. The silence is only punctuated by Tosh's sobs.

* * *

It's two more days before they take Gwen, and Tosh covers her ears to try and block out the screams. Ianto can tell from her expression it doesn't work.

"I thought I got away from spending the rest of my life in a cell," Tosh says quietly, after the silence settles back in.

Though he has no idea what she means and doesn't want to ask, Ianto gathers her against him, pulling her halfway onto his lap. She leans against him, eyes closed, her entire body shaking, and Ianto decides when the Master's henchmen come to take her, he's not letting her go. He'll kill them with his bare hands first.

He tries, too. The butt of a gun to the face knocks him back, though, stuns him just long enough, and he's left by himself in a corner of the cell, listening to Tosh's whimpers and sobs over the speakers.

For the first time, he hears Jack's voice too, choked by tears, just repeating the words, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

* * *

Ianto doesn't bother fighting when they come for him. It doesn't seem to matter, and so he just rises to his feet and walks calmly out. He knows it's going to hurt, and really doesn't care.

The room they lead him to is not the dark, bloodstained torture chamber he's been imagining. It's actually just a somewhat larger version of the cell he'd been in, brighter thanks to the windows place high on the walls, smelling strongly of ammonia. They shove him in, close the door behind him, and he hears the lock click. This can't be right.

He's standing against the wall opposite the door, back pressed against it uncertainly, when the door swings open again. It's not one of the armed guards who steps through, or Harold Saxon, or any of the other vague possibilities running through Ianto's mind.

It's Jack. Battered, dirty, tired and beaten to hell, but _Jack_. Ianto stares for a moment, and then throws himself across the cell to meet Jack just inside the doorway, barely noticing as the door clangs shut behind Jack. Jack's arms wrap around him, tight, and in an instant he's wrapped up in Jack's warm, familiar weight and the smell of him and feeling impossibly safe.

He knows this has to be a trick, a trap, some new clever form of torture. But just now, this moment, with Jack wrapped around him and neither of them about to let go, he doesn't _care_.

* * *

Jack sits in a corner of the room, pulls Ianto onto his lap, and holds him until he falls asleep, running his hand up and down his back, lips pressed to the top of his head, his own eyes closed the whole time. Just the sound of Ianto's breathing is enough to break his heart.

As soon as Ianto's asleep, he reaches into his pocket. He was given a gun and a choice. The choice is easy, even if it will kill him, or he only wishes it would. He can watch another screaming, bloody death, right in front of him.

Or.

Or this.

It never was a choice at all, and he and the Master both know that.

Ianto doesn't stir, even as Jack places the barrel of the gun against his temple. His hand doesn't shake, and he almost wishes it would.

_I'm sorry._

In the small, confined space, the gunshot is deafening.


End file.
